I had a little read around, and I am specially interested in figuring something out... I hope you don't think I am here for a sob story. I am just curious about something.

Perhaps I start with telling you story. I am Thai originally, from a little island called Pukhet. Religion was a big thing for my family, as we were part of a small group of Christians there. Now, that little island is odd in many ways, for a start there are a lot of tourists which changes the place, and there is also a part of the island which is pretty much all Muslim.

When I was young I went there once with my sister, and we got chatting to a really nice guy. He was handsome, funny and really sweet.

To make a long story short, I ended up being asked to marry this guy, and after some misgivings, my parents eventually agreed. Then things got a bit strange. AFTER I said yes, he suddenly said I would have be a Muslim. Before, he said he did not mind about my religion. Because it was really really important to him, I ended up saying yes, fool me. My "reversion" and marriage happened on the same day, and then I knew next to nothing about Islam. I awkwardly walked around with a scarf round my head, just to please my husband. Once we were married he insisted that we moved to KL in Malaysia, as he had family there and his uncle Arwi was going to give him a job.

Once we got to Kuala Lumpur, his charm rapidly faded away... I was ridiculed for not knowing how to say Islamic prayers properly, I was talked down to, seen as stupid, at times even beaten. AQnd I was meant to look after not only my husband and also his uncle's children... cooking, washing cleaning all day every day, and baby sitting 7 days a week. Arwi's wife treated me like a domestic, and even her children did.

The years went by, and my once charming husband treated me like a domestic animal... he never as much as talked to me. Once in a while he roughly grabbed me and did what men do, and then expected me to be specially grateful for that. I honestly sometimes felt I was a hole in the mattress. Years went by like that.

I don't what to bore you with my dull life. So I make it short. Then, one day, a pregnant woman called ay our house. He was working. She told me that she had been thrown out by her husband because my husband was the father of her baby. I was shocked but not really surprised. I was really angry but I also felt sorry for her and tried to help.

When my husband returned, I told him who had been visiting, and he flew into a rage. I ended up black and blue. Still when he eventually got a little calmer, I told him I wanted a divorce, and he should take the pregnant woman and look after her. At first he went mad again, and then he told me it was all my fault because I am not "adventurous" in bed, and don't get pregnant. In the end he agreed to the divorce because I was "useless". But he changed his mind several times back and forth... still in the end we got a divorce.

I changed my religion back to Christian, but in Thailand, not in Malaysia, because there if you are a Muslim this is very difficult. Later I found out through others that he already had 3 kids, one even before we got married with a girl in Patong, Pukhet who went out with tourists a lotm, and 2 more in Malaysia, one in KL, one in Johor Bahru. The one whose mother I briefly met was the fourth.

After I returned home, he kept ringing and even visiting a few times, and several times when I went out on an errant he suddenly appeared. He made a rather mad suggestion to me: I should marry a friend of his, only for a few days, divorce him and then get married to him again. He never even said he was sorry, it was as all we needed to is to get back together again and the "misunderstanding" will be soon forgotten.

Because I wanted to start a new life, and also because I was scared of him, I decided to go on a course of study at university far away, in Scotland. I stayed four years, and then returned home. I have not heard from him since, and I will not make inquiries, in case he gets the wrong idea.

Anyway, that is my story of the last 11 years or so.

I just wonder what experiences other women had with Muslim men... Have I just been totally unlucky, or are there others who went through similar things?

It's easy afterward to see who stupid I was, so please don't laugh. When you are in the middle of it and went you think you are in love, somehow your sense of judgement goes mad.

To be honest I can say I am over him as much as I can be. But even though I am not really all that old yet, I don't know if I ever want to get involved with another man. Are they all like that?

So, let me put my question this way... do Muslim men more often make a bad husband than others? My parents have been together for a long time, and they really are nothing like my husband and I were.

Also I have since found out that I cannot get pregnant anyway, but when I married I did not know that. Is not having a baby a reason to divorce a woman in Islam?

I am sure, not being able to get pregnant is cause for divorce, since the purpose of marriage is children. I think that is the general trend among non-Muslim women marrying a Muslim, they are quite terrible and only want a servant or slave around. They don't understand love properly.

I'm glad you were able to go Scotland and study, and good luck on your new life. What did you study?